Catholic Church a flawed and failed experiment

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis condemned the legalization of recreational drugs as a flawed and failed experiment on Friday, lending his voice to a debate which is raging from the U.S. to Uruguay and beyond.

Francis told delegates to a drug-enforcement conference in Rome that even limited attempts to legalize recreational drugs “are not only highly questionable from a legislative standpoint, but they fail to produce the desired effects.”

Likewise, providing addicts with drugs doesn’t solve the problem and is “rather a veiled means of surrendering to the phenomenon,” he said.

“Let me state this in the clearest terms possible: the problem of drug use is not solved with drugs!”

I like a lot of what the new Pope has been saying, but here he’s just completely out to lunch.

Legalization a “failed experiment”? Where? Name one place where drug legalization has failed. The truly flawed and failed experiment is prohibition.

And that last sentence? Wow. The absolute moral certainty with which he speaks nonsense is breathtaking. I can practically picture him leading citizens with pitchforks against medical scientists vaccinating for smallpox, saying “Let me state this in the clearest terms possible: the problem of disease is not solved with disease!”

31 comments to Catholic Church a flawed and failed experiment

There is nothing the pope says which is of the least interest to me. He is just the head of the least moral of all the churches. The litany of immorality within the ‘true church’ is breathtaking. In my experience, the most moral people are either atheists or muslim. That’s right, muslim. The least moral people I have encountered in my 61 years are christians. Especially the overtly ‘devout’ ones with the coffee table bible. The catholic church is immoral in the extreme and should be taxed out of existence. It has been the greatest evil on the planet and the scourge of humanity for far too long. Even life-long catholics are leaving the church. A close friend who was a catholic and has two sons, died a couple years ago and had a protestant minister do her funeral. “I ain’t having none of those fudge-packing priests anywhere near the place.” I agree.

I’d like to know more about this “drug-enforcement conference”… who else is there? Why is it being help at that Vatican? Is Sabet involved? Who is financing it?
The prohibitionists are no doubt hoping that the millions of Catholics in the US will meekly do what they’re told by the pope, and just say no…
just when it seemed this pope was a new broom… legalization really is a litmus test for politicians/popes etc. Now, instead of standing up for the oppressed, he’s announcing his support for more persecution and more oppression.

I’ve learned more Latin since following the state of cannabis law reform than I did in 3 years of middle school. If she hadn’t been mummified for decades Sister Stanislaus Kostka would drop dead when she heard that news.

It’s statements like this that prove the Pope isn’t infallible after all.

And I wonder what the Pope thinks about all those Catholics in good standing that pound down the adult beverages for recreational purposes. Christians who party with alcohol and support drug prohibition are some of the biggest hypocrites out there, and the RCC is full of these type of hypocrites.

If I want advice from men in funny clothes and hats, I’ll find the nearest circus and speak to the clowns there. The advice I’d find there is likely to be more moral than anything that comes from mouths of Catholic priests, bishops, cardinals, or popes.

But Francis emphasized Friday that the problems underlying drug use must be addressed, including social inequality and lack of opportunities for the young.

To reject illegal drugs, he said, “one has to say ‘yes’ to life, ‘yes’ to love, ‘yes’ to others, ‘yes’ to education, ‘yes’ to greater job opportunities. If we say ‘yes’ to all these things, there will be no room for illicit drugs, for alcohol abuse, for other forms of addiction.”

So Franky believes social inequality and a lack of opportunities are the reasons people consume marijuana? Talk about being out of touch. Enlightenment requires rejecting superstitions and lightening up by lighting up.

As a former addiction treatment specialist during his bishopric tenure in Argentina, the threat posed by marijuana legalization to the Catholic Church’s drug treatment scam must weigh heavily. When one’s whole career can be usurped by a better scientific understanding of cannabinoids, or a new anti-addiction pill, or an acid trip, or a contraceptive, it’s time to just say ‘yes’ to hanging it up.

Here are the main paragraphs from the address of His Eminence, Cardinal Dougherty, the Archbishop of Philadelphia, to the Catholic societies of the Archdiocese on New Year’s Day 1931:

“Having heard the report on behalf of the members of the Total Abstinence Society, it occurs to me to say that when the law prohibiting alcoholic drink was passed, many thought that there would be no further need for our temperance or total-abstinence societies. Hence the practice of giving a pledge against intoxicating liquors to boys and girls at Confirmation was discontinued. There seemed to be no need of it.”

“But, unfortunately, Prohibition has not performed the miracles that were expected. According to experts, such as judges, public officials, social service workers, and others, there is as much, perhaps even more, drunkenness and intemperance today than before the passage of the Volstead Act.”

“When in the past did we see young men and women of respectable families carrying a flask of liquor when going to social events? When did we see young girls, not yet of age, drinking in public, perhaps to excess, cocktails and the strongest kind of intoxicating liquors, and perhaps being overcome by them? That, today, is not an uncommon sight.”

Once upon a time, Seriously, circa 1966, when cigarettes were fags, we would sneak to the park to smoke them. One night some strange looking older boys in Denim jackets and pants sauntered past in the dark shadows across the street.
“Catholics.” murmered my cohort, Larry, barely 12, inhaling deeply and confidently.
Nearly 50 years on it still rings loud every time I see someone in jeans. ‘Catholics,, lol eeeeew

I’ve always found that Catholics are a better source of cigarettes at a party than any other religion. Buddhists the worst, closely followed by Jews and high episcopalians. Not sure about Muslim brothers as they tend to avoid alcohol and imbibers.

“Isn;t there a Catholic here who can give me a cigarette? – direct quote from a co-worker many years ago.

Iran is the 3rd leading consumer of alcohol in the Middle East and not every nation outlaws it. The alcohol black market is vast and funds Al Qaeda and many others as well–but not nearly as much as the dope trade does. They also love their hash and smack as well. Coke is popular in many Muslim nations since it crosses into Africa and North Africa for Europe–but not without thousands and thousands of grams going through the nostrils of the locals. I would also say MDMA is popular amongst the club scene in the Middle East and X’s chemicals have to travel through the Middle East . . . there’s a lot of love drug cooks between the forests of Cambodia and the cobbled streets of Dublin. I would also say that cocaine would be popular in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait because it is not alcohol and also good for the club scene as well . . . speed is all the rage as well in Saudi Arabia . . . 30% of the worlds Meth comes from there.

“Where’s the Muslim who can get me a Cigarette” . . . they smoke on some fine tobacco over there–exotic blends coming from New Port and Marlboro and Winston and them little Bidis I always found at the Babylonian market–a marijuana smelling cigarette but without the grass. Human nature disregards all races, religions and creeds. Want to taste a nice cold beer–just right for the hot sun–Iraq has some good beer and alcohol is not illegal. When going on a drug travel, I highly suggest the Middle East and North Africa–dangerous but the buds remind you of the kind Colorado and California and BC have.

Oh bah. The catholic church is still pissed off that it couldn’t do anything to ease the suffering of all of those sick people, and then the herbalists came along, didn’t cure anyone but did manage to ease their suffering before they came and carted the cadavers off to the mass graves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gQrqHDBQ4o

Churches hate cannabis and other drugs because they are their harshest competitors so I’m not surprised. Grovel, pray, pay, obey bizarre rules from the dark ages, tolerate the worst hypocrites *or* load up a vape with some dank buds, do whatever it is you do, and just feel good. Drugs have brought me a lot closer to “God” (and peace and happiness) than churches ever have.

I’ve just realized that the subject of re-legalization is causing a major division within the catholic church. While some pundits claim that the argument subtracts from the church’s mission, others claim that it multiplies people’s problems. As always, due to his infallability the pope gets the last word:

Sadly, he’s condoning the persecution of Christians under his breath and many others. He knows that there is fighting amongst Christians and Muslims and Christians against Christians and Muslim against Muslim as well. To be so blind or to willingly closing one’s eyes off to the power of drug money and the totality of a Narco-State (Guinea-Bissau)and Africa’s many ‘le narco-Islamistes’, is unsettling. I thought Catholics were Pro-Life and not Pro-Choice. He has made the Choice to end a human life so someone won’t make the choice to use legal drugs or drugs at all. The physical and mental welfare of a self prescribing drug user is far more valuable than any human life, job, economy, government, neighborhood, family etc–all the victims belonging to drug war violence and belonging anywhere from Boston to Bissau and most definitely Baghdad.

The pope’s precious drug war means his U.S. ally gets to demonstrate how it keeps up with Jesus’ commandments: ‘The United States should reciprocate this show of goodwill by increasing and adjusting funding to USAID in Peru; in fiscal year 2012 the agency spent $26.4 million on counter-narcotics programs and just $8.6 million on economic development in the country.’

Well that’s 2 different takeaways I’ve seen – the first being the news-channel Chyron Version = “Pope says no to legal drugs”

And the second:

And public opinion has rapidly shifted toward softer policies on marijuana use, particularly.

In January, a CNN/ORC International survey found that 55% of respondents wanted to see marijuana made legal. That’s up from 16% in 1987, according to the CNN poll and numbers from the General Social Survey.

But Francis said such policies are “not only highly questionable from a legislative standpoint, but they fail to produce the desired effects.”

“To think that harm can be reduced by permitting drug addicts to use narcotics in no way resolves the problem,” he said.

Reading the quote from the(AP) via “USA Today” in Pete’s post, (and another above = from the NBCmontana.com site/story) leads me to ask a couple questions.What are = “the desired effects.”
andWhat is = “the problem of drug use.”
Other than it’s – “EVIL-NESS” of course…

Sounds to me like he’s arguing the opposite side of the Freud/Marx ‘religion as wish-fulfillment’ debate… Well, -sort of- he seems to be worried that Opiates CAN in fact become “the religion of the masses/people”…
OR, more importantly he’s pointing out the growing FEAR among Government and The Church that drugs can undermine their weakening social controls on individuals!To me, it’s ALMOST like he’s shining the worlds largest laser-pointer on “the man behind the curtain” – and he doesn’t realize it.

Its not unlike the many people that are -increasingly- ‘overly concerned’ about other peoples’ business, when it comes to other things that monopolize those peoples time & attention.

Example: (Local Evening News Opening ‘Tease’) – “Are people are becoming addicted to their Smart-phones and other electronic devices. Is this a problem that you should worry about among YOUR family?”Later, Our ‘Sophia So-&-Sow’ – will have a special report on this widely growing concern – that’s quickly sweeping the nation…”

The Government, the Church, and every Big Business Corp. – wants a portion of your time/money/tax/tithe, attention & consumerism/brand-loyalty/devotion.
Some of them seem to be teaming up to keep a desperate hold on what they’ve recently been losing at swift rate.

FWIW, I think this is largely a case of the Prohib-Iditots using/”abusing” The Pope – he’s talking Social Welfare – they’re twisting his words to back their losing cause… IMNSHO, I also believe they’ve been translating his words rather loosely as well.

A Word From Our Sponsor http://www.cocaine.org/cokepope.jpg
His Holiness The Pope enjoyed the invigorating properties of coca wine. Leo XIII carried a personal hipflask to fortify himself in time of need. A grateful Pope awarded a Vatican gold medal to its distinguised orginator, the Corsican-born pharmacist and businessman Angelo Mariani. Mariani had a keen eye for the benefits of celebrity-endorsement.

“the idea that the Sun is stationary is “foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture…”; while the Earth’s movement “receives the same judgement in philosophy and … in regard to theological truth it is at least erroneous in faith.”

Pope Francis is as up to date on this subject as the Church was in their opposition to heliocentrism.

Is it any wonder why pronouncements from the Holy See are referred to as Papal Bulls? The irony of language matching colloquialism is just too funny to pass up.

Bull, indeed. How much dirty drug money from staunchly Catholic nations like those in Central and South America, prime drug production areas, flows through the Vatican Bank?

Pope Frankie ought to re-read that sermon about bitching that your neighbor has a dust speck in his eye when you have a freakin’ 2×4 sticking out of yours. That is, if he can see past the one he’s wearing. (And this said from a recovering Catholic.)

Yet Italy is flooded with cocaine coming from Africa and many of his flock just so happens to live in Africa, not far from the cocaine routs . . . and he could care less about all the Terrorism victims coming from his other nation, the Philippines–a nation ravaged by it and ravaged by a huge drug black market funding all the violence to a whopping $8.4 billion a year.

The second most dangerous recreational drug (alcohol), is part of the very fabric of the Catholic church. It plays a central part in it’s rituals. So, anything the Pope has been saying is firmly in the realm of knee-trembling hypocrisy and double standards. The Pope is merely confirming that the Catholic Church supports the oppression of people whose drug of choice happens to be other than alcohol, tobacco or caffeine. And as other people in this forum have suggested, the only thing the Catholic Church really cares about is money.